Implants, and in particular those that have been recently developed, can be the subject of procedures called “clinical trials” and/or “clinical protocols”, according to which, among a population of patients carrying a model of a given implant, certain of these patients are selected to be the subject of a more specific follow-up. This follow-up generally involves complementary examinations, consultations, and care. The results of the follow-up examinations are collected and compiled for statistical study of the selected population of patients.
The present invention concerns a process for managing the data acquired in connection with such clinical trials and protocols, in particular allowing for a more regular and exhaustive follow-up and avoiding, by dematerialization of the collected information, the recourse to paper questionnaires or follow-up cards that heretofore have been filled out by hand by the practitioner when he or she examines one of the patients selected for the clinical study or concerned with clinical protocol.
The invention also applies, mutatis-mutandis, to the management of the data for a “registry” or a “investigation”, i.e. a procedure implying (as compared with a clinical protocol) monitoring all of the patients in the population carrying an implant of a given model. The data concerned here are data simply collected, in particular in the aim of epidemiological studies, at the time of the interrogations of the implant, whether routine interrogations or interrogations following an evolution of the pathology of the patient, but without either a particular examination or more constraining follow-up procedures as occur in the case of clinical protocols.